1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to truck and van vehicles, and more particularly to pickup trucks with toppers or inserts and cargo vans used for transporting cargo and ladders to work sites.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
Pickup trucks used as work vehicles typically comprise a cargo bed and a cab. Owners may typically install a topper unit on the cargo bed where the topper unit typically comprises a molded fiberglass structure having a front wall adjacent the cab, a rear wall adjacent a tailgate and with sidewalls extending between the front and rear walls. A roof of the topper unit covers the space defined by the front, rear and sidewalls. In some instances, the height of the topper unit matches the height of the cab but there are topper designs where the height of the topper exceeds the height of the cab. The topper will typically have doors in the side and rear walls to facilitate loading and unloading of cargo from the interior of the topper compartment.
A typical cargo van has a unitized passenger cab and a closed cargo compartment having a roof, left and right sidewalls and a rear wall with access doors on the sides and/or rear wall.
In many service industries, such as building construction, plumbing, communication equipment installation and the like, extension ladders are a necessary implement. Because such ladders are typically too long to fit within a pickup truck's cargo bed, they are commonly carried on a rack affixed to the roof of the topper as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,170,331 and 4,932,717. The ladders are fastened to the rack while being transported to a job site but are then manually removed from the rack and carried to the point of use.
When an ergonomic ladder rack that include a mechanism for transferring a ladder from a stowed position on the roof of the vehicle to a take-away position along the vehicle's side, such as described in applicant's earlier U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,099,231 and 6,764,268, is conventionally mounted on a pickup truck topper, as shown in FIG. 3 of the drawings or on the roof of a cargo van, the overall height of the combination may preclude the vehicle from entering many parking ramps, underground parking facilities and other buildings where the clearance height for the vehicle is limited. Accordingly, a need exists for an assembly of an ergonomic ladder rack with either a pickup vehicle with a topper or a cargo van where the overall height dimension of the assembly is reduced to a point where the vehicle can readily clear existing building structures with height restrictions.